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Plot
Act 1 Act 1 opens with the Black Feather crew protecting a targeted DEMUS politician from an assassination ordered from Unter. The mission goes sideways when Jackdaw strays from the plan and reveals themself to the enemy. Although the mission was accomplished quicker than expected, the Black Feather organisation was almost compromised. On the way back to the Black Feather headquarters, the Nest, Crow, the leader of the team argues with Jackdaw about how the mission should've gone. When the team returns to the headquarters, they are briefly reprimanded by Corvus for being too public but was endlessly praised for accomplishing the mission so quickly. Crow and Jackdaw once again get involved in an argument which is shortly broken up by Rook while Raven and Corvus converse to the side. Rook suggests that the team surveys the damage that was done to the city and help out where they can. Crow is asked to stay behind with Corvus while the other members of the team are dismissed. Later, the team is tasked with moving a politician out of Gunnedin. Black Feather has received intel that Leona Cassius, a member of the DEMUS party is a target for an assassination. During the mission, Cassius seems desperate to not be moved out of the principality. She pleads to the team that she has valuable information that can be used as blackmail against NGLUS and thus she is kept to live in secret in the Nest. This time it was Crow that strayed from the task and Corvus was disgruntled at the fact that they are harbouring a politician that should be dead but he allowed it because now the team was able to formulate a plan to take down Michael and appoint Lucas Morgan as the new Archbrother. Although this plan was executed exactly, they were thwarted by NGLUS and made it a public show to behead Corvus, a wanted criminal for years, and expose Black Feather as a terrorist organisation. Act 2 Without a leader, Black feather was greatly set back. In the meantime, Cassius decides to take over because there were just some fundamental inner workings of the government that not even Corvus really understood until the government is truly exposed. NGLUS ends up turning the media and the public against members of Black Feather so they need to lie low for a while to collect more information about NGLUS. Raphael controls genetic research, Gabriel controls the military and the Supersoldier Genome Project while Michael controls everything else. In this time, the team is divided by opposing values. Crow wants the team to follow direct orders while Jackdaw suspects that Cassius is using Black Feather to rise to what they believe to be a superficial position of Archbrother. The team loses its balance slightly and become polarised. Rook is forced to take Jackdaw's side and Raven is forced to take Crow's side. Jackdaw becomes fed up with Black Feather and asks Rook to assist their escape from Gunnedin. Rook tries to convince them to stay because they both have strong ties to the town. Jackdaw is almost ready to escape. Raven notes to Crow that Cassius has been acting fishy and has been trying to hide files from her. This prompts Crow to secretly dig through Corvus' files. Crow discovers that Rave, Rook, Jackdaw and himself were all part of separate supersoldier projects and were genetically modified. Jackdaw especially discovers their grim series of experimentation and they go into shock. Together in infuriation, Crow, Raven, Rook and Jackdaw break off from Black Feather now believing that it is now just another government controlled sector. The four formulate a new plan to fight against Cassius and Black Feather in a public manner that garners the attention of the masses. When the attack against Black Feather is initiated and it really seemed like they would succeed but many of those who backed the four died in the process and before they were picked off as well, they were saved by an outsider. Act 3 The AGCT team is badly injured and are recovering in Kain Wulfric's care after Jackdaw took their jeep out of storage and drove them all to Kain's cabin out in No Man's Land while seriously injured themself. Kain used to mentor Jackdaw and had to remind the team of their hubris and how wayward Jackdaw has become. Crow wants to go back to Gunnedin immediately to clear out NGLUS but everyone convinces him that they are far too injured and outnumbered to try since it is impossible to contact any members of Black Feather since they have all been scattered. Jackdaw almost believes that it is best if they should all just head to other settlements and let Gunnedin rot. Rook is very opposed to this idea since he has strong connections to his thief community in Gunnedin. Raven thinks that everyone is out of their minds and are far too traumatised by what happened to start making rash decisions now. She thinks that they need to recover before they can do anything. The whole team is then mentored by Kain in the meantime. They wondered why Kain was trying to teach them homesteading and self sufficiency in the woods (not the type that Rook is familiar with because he is only well versed in city survival) instead of fighting and weaponry. Although Jackdaw was already formerly trained on this, Kain berates them for being rusty at it since they have focused too much on combat. The crew becomes impatient with Kain. He tells the crew the history of Gunnedin. They are already familiar with the events since Black Feather's inception but are surprised about the true past of Gunnedin told by someone who was there the whole time. Kain was also able to tell the crew of tales from before the Plague that his parents have lived through before they joined Gunnedin. The crew has been taught to live off the land this whole time because the cancer in Gunnedin is terminal. They must put it out of its misery and never return to it. Sure they can always join another society but with this knowledge of such dystopia, how can they ever trust again? Kain also explains to them that the rumours and tales they've heard about the utopias that are the other societies are not necessarily true either. Every society has its faults that have just become something people have gotten used to. They are way better than Gunnedin but because the stories of utopia have been so deeply ingrained in the anti-NGLUS, they will just be disappointed. But why can't they just overthrow NGLUS and replace them with DEMUS? It really is not that simple. NGLUS has been in power for so long that the NGLUS way of life has just been ingrained into some people. Even the infrastructure of the city is geared towards NGLUS' plans and it would take decades of nonstop work to revert Gunnedin to how it was in Old City. Wouldn't it be worth the effort? Not necessarily. Even though not everyone are avid supporters of NGLUS, there are a few of the elite who have been so brainwashed into being dependent on NGLUS that they are willing to do anything to try to bring it back. A neo-NGLUS movement if you will and it would be far too easy to bring back NGLUS in a population that mostly is already adjusted to that kind of lifestyle. They must all be aware that there is a huge change that affects them. This is the only way you can get the docile Gunnedines to take action. Although the crew really does not want to live out in the middle of nowhere forever, they still decide to go through with what Kain has to teach and to formulate a plan for destroying Gunnedin when they are ready. The crew asked Kain if he wanted to join them. He did not ever want to set foot back in Gunnedin again but he is absolutely willing to be a place of respite for escapees and to direct them to other settlements. When the team reenters the city, things for thieves and Black Feather have taken a turn for the worse. The Nest has been ransacked and searched by military police, bounties have been placed on notable members of the organisation to be detained and executed, thieves are being interrogated for relations to Black Feather while their livelihoods are being taken from them. Development projects are happening in thief districts and the military has despatched its soldiers to deal with east side thieves. The Queen of Thieves is extremely angry with the AGCT crew for abandoning Gunnedin for so long and her community has been suffering because of it. Most proles are aware that there's a war going on but it does not affect them directly enough for them to care about it, especially the richer proles who are almost completely insulated from the events going on in the outskirts of Gunnedin. Despite the initial disagreement between the crew and Cassius, she has left notes and clues in the ruins of The Nest on valuable information because she still had faith in the crew. They read through some of the files and understand that they were not bred specifically for Black Feather but rather they were rescued by Corvus' proto-Black Feather organisation to not only build a good army for Black Feather but also to weaken enemy forces by taking away their subjects and destroying their DNA banks. So a plan must be executed. It is obvious now that Jackdaw is not actually Uri Adler and that Uri has been dead for around 2 years. Black Feather is locked in and they need to make of that as they will. Crow makes the effort to round up Black Feather members who are in hiding. Raven follows alongside him to funnel out and protect proles to help them escape Gunnedin. The remaining Black Feather members distract the military guards at the border and help Raven move people out. Meanwhile, Jackdaw and Rook capture and interrogate high profile proles and NGLUS officials on recent info about Michael, Raphael and Gabriel. This occurs in secret over 2 months but NGLUS has caught wind of Black Feather's return. It seems that the more brainwashed proles are staying and are actively defending NGLUS and that they are using these people as a meat shield. Members of DEMUS are rapidly and brashly being killed off because they are a liability to NGLUS. Some members of DEMUS have defected to NGLUS to protect themselves, some attempted to fight back against NGLUS but failed and some have gone into hiding. Now Black Feather is in the final stages of its plan. It is all out war. Most of the proles and thieves have fled and all that remain are NGLUS, wealthy proles with undying support for NGLUS, military and all who are aligned with Black Feather. Even though there are far more on NGLUS' side, they no longer have the support of the economy and its workers. And because they are constantly flexing the power of their military, their military is only as powerful as it always has been. There's nothing NGLUS can offer to Black Feather to stop them and they know that they are outmatched. NGLUS is still furiously paying off the richer proles that remained to protect them and at this point, NGLUS is expecting Black Feather to break through security any moment to come assassinate them. Which is exactly what is happening. Black Feather has decided to heed Kain's word and eliminate NGLUS. Crow took charge and issued the orders. Raven was tasked with managing security and sending in reinforcements where necessary as well as being ordered to wipe out any unnecessary guards and brainwashed rich proles. She especially needed to keep an eye on Crow as he approaches the parliament building to eliminate Michael. She also does a lot of the sniping near the parliament building up on a rooftop. First Raven takes inventory of the security at Rook's location. While Rook is fighting the supersoldiers, Raven is directing Jackdaw through the military facility. This was around the point where Crow confronts Michael and Raven needed to be on high alert with him. Before Raven could get back to Rook and Jackdaw, some gross rich guy with a fedora, a katana strapped to his back appears and threatens Raven with an assault rifle and is claiming to be a hero for fighting against Black Feather. Raven clearly outmatches him but she needed to be careful since he was extremely volatile. She would rather talk this kid out of what he was doing before he made a bad decision or injured himself while so high up. And Raven definitely did not want to deal with him longer than she had to so she can get back to her crew. Basically the dude believed that he was superior to the military that comprised of low income proles but he still wanted to fight for his country. He is so obviously brainwashed and coddled and showed clear signs of human domesticity. Raven tried to explain that this is the end game and that he should escape to a better settlement while he still can. Brony doesn't listen, spouts some government superiority shit and science and evolution and fired at her because he considered her lesser for being poor. Immediately, she disarmed him and held him to the edge of the building as a warning. She also revealed that she was a transgenic human bred for supersoldier purposes. Immediately he dropped his act and started begging for his life. Raven dropped him a quick summary of Black Feather's philosophy. If he wanted to leave, he should do it now. Rook was tasked to eliminate Raphael, the leader of genetic engineering. Before Rook could set off to perform this elimination, he received an invitation to the headquarters of his birthparents' gene therapy company to meet with Raphael. Raphael had set up an emotional trap that would have never worked. As Rook entered, he was met with a portrait of his parents and a computer generated voice recording of his parents telling him a heartfelt message. Raphael tries to empathise with Rook. He tried to get Rook to realise that the woman who cared for him his entire life was actually the assassin of his parents and that she essentially stole him from his family. He also tried to explain to Rook that he was going to be the heir of the company and live a life of luxury. Rook was unfazed by this because when he was young, Adelaide did indeed explain to Rook that she was responsible for his parents' murder and that she swore off assassination. Raphael was flustered because his plan did not work. Rook also said that if they knew all along that Rook lived in the slums with Adelaide after his parents' assassination then why did the gene therapy companies owned by Raphael still perform experimental procedures on Rook to the point of him becoming disabled? While Rook was pretending to be stunned by the display Raphael had set up for his arrival, he was scanning the room for security personnel and signalled to Raven for the elimination of security by Black Feather members. As much as Raphael called for security to take care of Rook, they were not available. He resorted to calling on Raphael to deploy the supersoldiers so now Rook had to take on the supersoldiers in one last fight. Unfortunately Raven was preoccupied with other affairs but Rook was certain he could tough it out anyways. ... Jackdaw was tasked to eliminate Gabriel, head of military. Crow did not give them a specific set of rules since he was certain they could handle themselves. But this time, Jackdaw decided to go the stealth way that is the Black Feather way even though there is no point in being stealth now and they did end up taking a longer time than necessary. Jackdaw actually did make it into Gabriel's location undetected but only after he had deployed the supersoldiers to Raphael and Rook's location. They talk some blabber about supersoldiers and how Jackdaw should rejoin since they are such a powerful asset. Jackdaw reveals that all the supersoldiers in the lab are made with a killswitch in case they go rogue. They turn around and show Gabriel their neck and then shoots a tranq dart from their wrist. Raven remarks that the theatrics were really unnecessary but anyways. Jackdaw loudly takes Gabriel's sleeping body outside and demands that the military follows Jackdaw now because their leader is dead but... that kind backfires on them. Using Gabriel as a meatshield, they retreat and call on Raven for backup. ... Crow decided to be the one to break through the highest security and eliminate Michael. Upon finally reaching Michael, he gets that Crow is the leader of Black Feather now. Michael rather half heartedly explains that he could do better and that he could rebuild Gunnedin better. You should understand right? When you're a leader you have to make sacrifices. You have to keep people in line. Crow said that he had given up control over the rogues in his crew (specifically Jackdaw) because they need agency to function. Yet the role of leader is still extremely important even if they are grossly outmatched by a subordinate. So that's why Crow needs to kill Michael right then and there. Michael lost his cool and claimed that he was a god and was entitled to people obeying him and catering to his whims and that no mortal could kill him. Crow ordered a sniper rifle shot from Raven. Raven could see that that was just a statue and was confused. Crow convinced her to just shoot it. Michael proclaimed that Crow's sniper had missed but then it dawned on him that the giant heavy marble statue was going to crush him. Crow escapes. He did not kill Michael by his own hand even though he had every opportunity to do so. Crow goes to help out Jackdaw as per Raven's request. Jackdaw joked that Crow isn't so much as a rule follower as he once was but Crow remarked that he followed Black Feather's moral code of no killing. Jackdaw revealed that they did not end up killing Raphael either because they knew deep down that they could never be a killer. Rook also revealed that he did not kill Gabriel either. During this time, we see Kain processing the Gunnedine refugees. One of them is Lucas Morgan and Kain recognises him. Morgan hands Kain a letter and moves on to be processed. Kain asks how Morgan betrayed his party by escaping instead of fighting for what's right and Morgan shrugs and says he knew that this would all happen and that there is no point in stopping what will always eventually happen and that he looks forward to seeing the actual end of the world. The letter tells of all the confidential crap that indicates that Gunnedin was controlled by a higher power and that there are more settlements, even good ones that are simply largescale human experiments. He also remarks that Kain is lucky that he lives out here alone in the tundra and that it would be something he would do if he wasn't such a curious bystander. After the day is over, the crew and Kain sit up somewhere high and watch the conflagration from afar. There were the rich proles attempting to escape. The team ponders what they should do next, whether they want to split up or stay together because there are different settlements that appeal to each one. Kain says that it does not matter whether they stay together or go their separate ways, as long as they rise to the occasion when anything like this happens again because history will repeat itself and who knows what would happen now that it isn’t confirmed if Michael is dead or not or who the higher power is for all of this. Kain does reveal that there is a higher power and that if they choose to live within a settlement they have to be careful and look out for themselves and not be a bystander. Do what you think is right.